WOW Guide

A new 2019 version of the popular Chester and Ellesmere Port What’s on Where Guide (WOW Guide) is now available. The guide is produced annually by Home Instead Senior Care and includes details of local groups, events and activities for older people in the community.

Chris and Sue Broadbent, owners of the local Home Instead Chester office, have lovingly researched and compiled this useful guide for the past few years, in order to help combat isolation and loneliness in the Chester and Ellesmere Port communities.

It is divided into categories, including lunch clubs and social events, support and advice groups, health and fitness and creative and leisure. As well as detailing lots of interesting events, it also lists contact numbers of useful organisations.

Home Instead provides non-medical care and companionship to older people in their own homes. Often this involves caregivers accompanying clients out of their homes, for walks, errands and activities. Home Instead care visits last for at least an hour and caregivers don’t wear uniforms, so they often take in social activities with their clients as well. The WOW Guide was born when company owners Chris and Sue realised what a vibrant social scene existed locally, for a demographic that suffers with loneliness more than any other.

Chris said: “A few years ago we looked at all of the groups and social activities that our caregivers were attending with their clients and realised just how much was going on throughout Chester and Ellesmere Port. We did some extra research and put the first What’s on Where Guide together, as a way to share the social calendar with even more older people in our community.

“Now we refresh the guide every year, to make sure that listings are up-to-date and to add anything new. Community groups are delighted to see their coffee mornings, classes and clubs publicised and the guides are invaluable to our caregivers and clients too.

“We encourage everyone to share the guide with anyone who they think could benefit. Nobody should have to suffer from loneliness but unfortunately, many of the older generation do. At Home Instead we provide companionship for lots of local people but there are lots more who perhaps don’t get out often; that could be because of something as simple as the fact that they don’t know what’s on that would interest them.”

5,000 copies of the guide are currently in circulation, available to pick up from public venues including health, centres, libraries and churches. They can also be obtained directly from Home Instead’s office.